


Somewhere in the Desert, There's a Forest

by mintchocolatechip97



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (i think), (via Ginny's book 2), (via Luna's Dead Mom Club membership), Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Canon Compliant, Dumbledore's Army, F/F, Female Friendship, Gen, Ginny and Luna love each other, Grief/Mourning, Minor Cho Chang/Harry Potter, Pre-Slash, Trauma, secret passageways, whether platonically or romantically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:41:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23809318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintchocolatechip97/pseuds/mintchocolatechip97
Summary: Ginny tells Luna a story.
Relationships: Luna Lovegood & Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Somewhere in the Desert, There's a Forest

**Author's Note:**

> This story is brought to you by my obsession with OotP Ginny saying "lucky you" to Harry forgetting about her possession experiences. This story is additionally brought to you by the fact that I logged out of most of my social media and had to find increasingly creative ways to procrastinate studying for finals.  
> Title from "Death with Dignity," by Sufjan Stevens, of course, because Dead Mom Club members stick together, even with our wildly differing experiences.  
> Stay safe, stay home if you can, I love you.

Ginny wasn’t entirely sure why she lingered at the last D.A. meeting before Christmas holidays. Michael had even looked significantly at the mistletoe as he was leaving the Room, but she waved him on. Ginny just wanted to soak in the reality of what Dumbledore’s Army had accomplished. Harry had taught them so much, right under Umbridge’s nose! It was glorious. Ginny closed her eyes and savored the moment. When she opened them, she saw Harry rummaging in the supplies and Cho lingering under the mistletoe. Ginny realized that she had savored enough, and turned to leave before that particular mess began.

As Ginny headed towards the door, she felt a soft touch on her arm. “Can I walk with you?” asked Luna.

“Of course,” said Ginny, without hesitation. Luna was a little odd, but Ginny had gotten used to it as she spent more time with her. Luna was obviously bright if you talked to her for more than a minute, even if her opinions were unconventional; and she spoke her mind without hesitation, which Ginny could appreciate. Luna was also unwaveringly kind, even though people were mostly unkind to her, which Ginny didn’t understand, but wanted to. “We’re after hours, so I’ll have to Disillusion us--”

“Oh good! I like the trickly feeling, it’s like waking from a dream,” said Luna, with more sincerity than Ginny felt she could ever muster.

The two girls walked as quickly and quietly as they could, wordlessly heading down the main staircase until they reached the fifth floor, where there were more and better turnoffs. They each knew the other had her own reasons for knowing secret ways around the castle. When they had reached relative safety in a passageway that could eventually lead them back to their common rooms, Ginny lifted the cloaking charms covering both of them. She didn’t like to look at the bizarre shifting shadows of a Disillusioned person in dim lighting anymore than she had to. They each leaned against a tunnel wall.

“I hope the nargles haven’t taken any of Harry’s stuff,” said Luna, breaking the comfortable silence. “He looked as if he wasn’t watching the mistletoe closely enough.”

“I’m sure he’ll be looking at it soon enough,” said Ginny, feeling the slightest of pangs for her first crush.

“Oh, right,” said Luna, “Cho did look determined, didn’t she?” Both girls giggled, before relaxing back into quiet.

“Let’s start walking,” said Ginny, “we need to pack”

After a few steps, Luna said, deceptively lightly, “Ginny, I know I’m not really your friend, but -- do you talk about it?”

“Of course you’re my friend,” said Ginny, automatically and protectively, before she processed the rest of Luna’s statement. “Talk about what?”

“I know something happened to you in first year.” Ginny stiffened, shocked that Luna would bring up what she could only know from years-old rumor. “All that stuff with the Chamber of Secrets and the petrified students, it ended when something happened with you and Ronald and Harry in the Chamber. Oh, and Professor Lockhart. I never liked him much, he would never answer my questions. But he came out of there awfully strange, didn’t he? And you were gone first. You skived off the second half of Herbology, I remember because it was so unlike you in first year.” Luna paused, before inquiring, “Are you alright?” as if she hadn’t just dropped a bomb into Ginny’s hard-won equanimity.

Ginny couldn’t tell if Luna was asking about this particular moment or her general state of being as a survivor of the Chamber. Either way there was only one answer she could give:  
“I’m fine, of course I’m fine.” Ginny stopped in the steep tunnel to catch her breath and Luna waited patiently, looking back at her with remarkable directness. Ginny considered how Luna was always honest, sometimes to a fault, and decided to honor that honesty with some of her own. “It’s not...easy to talk about it, still.”

Luna nodded, as if that combination of statements made complete sense, and they started to walk again. “I had a Bad Day, yesterday,” she said conversationally. Ginny could hear the capital letters, but wasn’t sure what they meant. “I dreamt about my mum, but it wasn’t the good kind of dream. I missed my last double Transfiguration before the Christmas Holidays because I couldn’t get out of bed. Then no one would share their notes with me.”

“I’m sorry,” said Ginny, feeling useless. She hated feeling useless. “I’ll hex those idiots for you. Or I can share my notes, even though I’m not sure we’re in exactly the same place--”  
“No, that’s alright, thank you,” said Luna. “Professor McGonagall knows I have bad days sometimes. If I need help later I can ask her, and she’ll say yes. She wouldn’t for someone whose mother hadn’t died, but she will for me. I probably won’t need help, though.”

Luna’s spangly silver Christmas sweater glinted in the perpetual torchlight of the dim little tunnel.

"It helps to talk about them sometimes, bad things.”

Ginny nodded, slowly. She knew that, in theory. She had talked to Hermione about it, once or twice, and that had seemed to help.

“I don’t know what happened to you,” said Luna, simply. “Dad thinks that it was Siberian Water Kringle, but I don’t think that would be so hard to talk about.”

Ginny laughed, in spite of herself. She couldn’t remember the basilisk very clearly, but she doubted it bore much resemblance to whatever a Siberian Water Kringle was.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” asked Luna. Suddenly, Ginny found that she did.

Ginny looked down at her feet, steadily walking the tunnel floor, took a deep breath, and started to speak. “When you were younger, did you ever have one of those not-quite-crushes? Somebody older and really fit, that you desperately wanted to be your friend, and couldn’t quite believe would pay attention to you? It started with one of those. Two of those, actually.” Ginny could see at the periphery of her vision that Luna was looking at her with wide eyes, but the other girl stayed quiet. Ginny continued, “First there was Harry, and then there was Tom.” She contemplated how best to explain about Tom to Luna.

“Tom was the Heir of Slytherin the last time the Chamber opened, when he was a Sixth Year. Lucius Malfoy slipped Tom’s diary into my school books summer before first year. Tom was in it, somehow. Dumbledore called it a memory, but he felt more real than that, like a person without a body. He wrote back to me. He listened to me. He had a beautiful face. He felt like the only person who really saw me, back then. I loved him.” Ginny could hear her disgust with herself creeping into her voice, as she confessed. She glanced at Luna, and steeled herself before continuing, “I was the one who opened the Chamber, who hurt all those people, including Hermione. Tom took over my body for hours at a time. I knew something was wrong, but I was too scared to tell anyone. And Tom was my friend, sometimes my only friend.”

“You were eleven,” said Luna, slowly.

“But--”

“You were eleven,” repeated Luna. “Do you want to tell me the rest?”

Ginny nodded, and kept going. “Towards the end of the school year, he took me down to the Chamber. This time, I knew what was happening, but I couldn’t control my own body. I saw the monster come out, and then...I fainted, I guess. I didn’t wake up until it was all over, and Dumbledore’s Phoenix flew us out. My parents and brothers were extra nice to me all summer. And then it felt like everyone, except maybe my mum, kind of forgot. We don’t ever talk about it anymore.”

“Did you forget?”

“No, of course not. How could I? Sometimes I still have nightmares that he’s forcing me to hurt my friends, over and over. I ask him to stop, ask him to remember that we’re friends, that he loves me. He never does. He wouldn’t. He became You-Know-Who, actually, Tom did, in real life.”

“Then you can’t blame yourself for not fighting him at eleven,” said Luna with such sublime confidence that Ginny gave a bitter little laugh.

“Harry did.”

“Harry has help,” said Luna. Ginny wasn’t sure exactly what the other girl meant, but she wasn’t certain she wanted to ask. They walked on in silence for a couple of minutes. Ginny knew they would reach their separate turn offs soon.

“I saw it, you know,” said Luna. “I was standing in the doorway to my mum’s laboratory when her charm went all the way wrong.” Ginny wasn’t sure what to say, so she stayed quiet. “I get dreams, too. Sometimes I miss her, dreadfully. Sometimes I worry I’m forgetting her. Sometimes I miss the life I might have had, if it hadn’t happened, or even if I hadn’t seen it.” It was like Luna had reached into Ginny’s chest and given her heart a firm yank. It hurt. “But we have to keep living the lives we have. You’ve done so well,” Luna said the last bit with such conviction that Ginny wanted to cry, and Ginny wasn’t usually a cryer.

Ginny turned and pulled Luna into her arms. Luna didn’t quite seem to know what to do when being hugged, flailing a little, but Ginny clung on to the taller girl. She tried to put into the hug everything she couldn’t quite articulate. She figured Luna would understand. When Ginny let go, she looked up and realized they had reached the turn off, where one passageway went to Gryffindor Tower, and the other went to the Ravenclaw dormitory. Luna smiled.

“Happy Christmas, Ginny”

“Happy Christmas, Luna”

**Author's Note:**

> Trans Lifeline: (877) 565-8860  
> https://www.translifeline.org/donate/  
> The Okra Project: https://www.artsbusinesscollaborative.org/asp-products/the-okra-project-sponsored-project/  
> The Transgender District: https://www.gofundme.com/f/transgenderdistrict  
> 


End file.
